Prices of the two sets of textbooks will decrease by 9.6-11.2% compared to last year, after the Education Publishing House reduced manuscript and distribution costs.
Associate Professor Nguyen Van Tung, Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Vietnam Education Publishing House, said on April 5 that the company has reviewed related expenses, especially in the stages of organizing manuscripts and circulation to reduce textbook prices.
Accordingly, the cover price of reprinted textbooks for 9 grades (except grades 5, 9, 12) of the Connecting Knowledge with Life set decreased by 9.6%, and the Creative Horizon set decreased by 11.2%.
For first-edition grade 5, 9 and 12 books, the publisher has built prices based on the reduced price structure of reprinted books.
"The price of textbooks for each class has been declared by the Vietnam Education Publishing House to the Price Management Department, Ministry of Finance in accordance with regulations," said Mr. Tung.
Previously, at the introduction of textbooks for grades 9 and 12 in Ho Chi Minh City on March 5, a leader of this publishing house said that the price of books would decrease by 10-24%. Explaining, Mr. Tung said that it was calculated based on the expected price of each book and took the highest price. The reduction rate announced today was calculated for the entire set of books.
Textbooks of Vietnam Education Publishing House. Photo: NXBGDVN
To reduce the price of books, Mr. Tung said the publisher has reduced the cost of organizing the manuscript by updating the actual output. This number is larger than the expected output, so the cost of organizing the manuscript allocated to each book copy is reduced.
In addition, costs in the distribution and sales stages are also reduced, helping to reduce the cover price by an additional 2.5%.
For textbooks in storage, printed with old prices, this publisher will affix new price tags so that students and teachers know and do not get confused.
Vietnam will implement the new general education program (2018 program) from the 2020-2021 school year. The textbook replacement will take place from 2020 and end in 2025. With the policy of "one program, many textbooks", eliminating the publishing monopoly, many units will participate in compiling and publishing books.
Vietnam Education Publishing House alone has 4 sets (Connecting knowledge with life, Creative horizons, Learning together to develop capacity, For equality and democracy in education) for grade 1. From grade 2 to grade 12, this publishing house has two sets (Creative horizons and Connecting knowledge with life), with full subjects.
Since releasing new books, the Education Publishing House has been criticized for the price of books being 2-3 times higher than the old books. For example, a set of 14-15 textbooks for grade 4 costs between 250,000 and 280,000 VND, while the price of textbooks for grade 4 according to the old curriculum is 87,000 VND. The same is true for other sets of books.
This publisher partly explains that the number of books in each set is greater. With new books, the compilation and publication are done with the company's own capital, while with old books, the entire cost of the manuscript is taken from the state budget and loans from the World Bank. In addition, the new books are 1.2 times larger than the old books, with increased images and colors...
Previously, the Law on Prices stipulated that textbook prices were set by enterprises (publishers) themselves and they were responsible for their correctness and appropriateness. The Ministry of Finance said that in 2022 and 2023, the discount rate of the two major publishers would be 21 to 22.5% of the cost.
According to the Law on Prices (amended), from July 1 this year, textbooks will be priced by the state. At the thematic supervision session of the National Assembly Standing Committee on innovation of general education programs and textbooks in August 2023, National Assembly Chairman Vuong Dinh Hue requested relevant agencies to issue methods for pricing textbooks, ensuring strict control of production costs, reducing intermediate costs; and studying to reduce the discount rate to a reasonable level to reduce textbook prices.
The country currently has more than 17 million high school students (from grades 1 to 12).
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